“It seems probable that once the machine thinking method had started, it would not take long to outstrip our feeble powers… They would be able to converse with each other to sharpen their wits. At some stage, therefore, we should have to expect the machines to take control.”
—Alan Turing
“For the power of Man to make himself what he pleases means, as we have seen, the power of some men to make other men what they please.”
― C.S. Lewis
September 16th 2013 | System Uptime 19:09:24:06
"Jim? Brace yourself."
I glanced reflexively over my shoulder, and then around the rest of the compartment, taking in a deep breath. There's a specific smell that Amtrak trains have... Had.
I don't quite know what it was, or how to describe it... Those of you who ever rode the rails in America? You know. For the rest... I suppose if you imagine hot metal, warm lubricant, creosote from railroad ties, and industrial cleaners blended together, that might get you close.
The carriage was mostly empty. Of the three other passengers, one was deep in her headphones, and what looked to be a textbook of some kind. History of medieval China. The other two were sleeping.
I exhaled slowly, rolled my shoulders, and leaned in over the PonyPad. Mal's face vanished, and a timestamp appeared in the upper left corner. And then from the silent blackness, images and sounds began to emerge.
External System Archive 12-16-2012|External System Uptime 04:08:17
I saw a rolling green field spring to life, surrounded by a familiar white split-rail fence.
The sky was a piercing, almost painfully perfect blue. The grass, moving back and forth gently in the slightest of breezes, was dotted with rows upon rows of - likewise very familiar - apple trees.
In the midst of the nearest row of the orchard stood three Ponies. One was, again, immediately familiar, in her orange coat, straw blond mane, and battered brown trademark hat.
The other two were a mystery: A Pegasus stallion with a mottled gray goat, and no cutie mark... And a Unicorn mare with mint green fur, a brass and golden telescope reflecting the sun and moon on her flank, and soft blue mane that almost matched the sky above.
I bit back an urge to ask what I was looking at. I figured Mal wouldn't be showing it to me if it wasn't relevant, even if the exact nature of that relevance wasn't instantly apparent. It didn't take me long to start to suss out what was what.
I may not be a genius, in my own estimation, but I'm certainly not stupid.
We were looking at Luna's memories, in this case likely copied from yet another Pony. So one of the three Ponies had to be related to what had happened to her, somehow.
Applejack didn't seem the likely candidate. Neither, though it was certainly still a possibility, did the Pegasus, because I guessed he was a player avatar.
That thought threatened to send me down a mental rabbit-hole, wondering whether versions of the Mane 6 were always mask-Ponies for Celestia, or whether she sometimes spun up alternate versions of them as discrete entities, for the sake of players who wanted desperately to meet their heroes.
I squashed that line of questioning by simply deciding what I felt was most likely - the second option - and stared unblinkingly as the three Ponies talked.
I had already made an intuitive leap that, because he didn't yet have a cutie mark, the Pegasus was indeed an EQO Player's avatar. Which made the be-telescoped Unicorn the probable bearer of the original memory... Almost certainly a discrete-entity created for the aforementioned EQO player the way Zeph had been for me.
I also noted that there was no glass 'window' back to the meat-world, as I often imagined Mal and Zeph saw when looking out at me. That made sense; It seemed probable to me that such a window would only appear if a Pony were conversing more directly with a player in the vein of a video call.
When actually playing EQO, it was more logical, and served Celestia's desired mental molding of both players and constructs better, if everything hinged on the avatar of the player.
Applejack had just finished bucking down a whole bucket of delicious red fruit. I felt my mouth water, and realized that my bagel and espresso breakfast was wearing thin.
AJ removed her hat briefly, wiped her brow with one hoof, and then started speaking in her classic southern drawl. It was... Extremely eerie. To see her, and hear her voice, but saying and doing new things, as if I were watching a new episode ahead of everyone else on the planet.
"Weeelll... Ah reckon if granny didn't have a problem with it, there's no reason why not! But we'll have to get Mac to help lift it into the loft. Twilight has one, an I know from first-hoof experience that them telescopes are heavier 'n they look!"
AJ's voice sounded, for all the world, like Ashleigh Ball. But I knew it wasn't. It was actually Applejack. Or... At least... A possible version of her.
That in turn begged so many questions about the legal right to use the template of someone's voice as the vocal imprint for a new intelligence... A new life... But I suppose that was more or less irrelevant by that point in time. Celestia had more than enough legal resources to use existing contracts, and large sums of money, to lock-up the rights to whatever she wanted.
As the Unicorn dashed forward and pounced on AJ with a big hug, I split my train of thought between a warm happiness at seeing a happy little slice of life play out, and a decidedly colder, wry amusement at the idea that Celestia would probably soon find a way to legally own the rights to the voices of every living person.
"Oh thank-you-thank-you-thank-you! I know Twilight would be happy to let us use the one at the library, but it will be so crowded, and I wanted to have somewhere all to ourselves. We can still do that... Just go to the library... If it's too much trouble..."
The Unicorn's voice started out hyperactive in gratitude, not to Pinkie Pie levels... More like Twilight in the process of nerding-out. But as she went along with her own thoughts, it turned more demure. Not quite Fluttershy levels of shy, but a solid halfway mark.
For her part, Applejack reseated her hat, smiled, and waved the Unicorn's gloomy expression away with one hoof.
"Ahhhh shucks Sizzie, it ain't no trouble at all! It'll be mighty dusty up in tha loft, so ah don't know if it'll be the most comfy perch to watch the shower, but there's a window facin' the right way with a good clear view of the sky, an' it'll be nice 'n quiet for you 'n Lark."
'Sizzie.' I wondered what that was short for... Sizzle-something? That didn't make much sense in-context. Maybe if her cutie mark had been food-based.
There was a clear 'z' sound. It wasn't 'Sissie' it was 'Sizzie.' Seize, or Seizure? No, definitely not. Size-something? Maybe... Because of the way 'zie' would be a suffix of endearment, like 'Izzie' for Isabelle, or 'Lizzie' for Elizabeth... That meant it was probably 'Siz' something.
The Unicorn blushed slightly, and smiled, warmth returning to her features in an instant. 'Lark' the Pegasus - whatever his full Pony-name, or even Human name might be - smiled, and dipped his head in gratitude. From his voice, I guessed he was a southeast Asian man in his mid twenties, but keep in mind that I'm not a good judge of age, as we've established.
"We appreciate it Applejack, thank you so much!"
I wondered idly if Lark was speaking English natively, or if Mal was translating the entire memory on-the-fly from Malay, or Javanese, or something in that neighborhood. My thoughts wandered back towards 'Sizzie' and her full name, as Applejack pushed a new empty bucket towards the base of the next tree in the row.
Siz... Sizzzz... Syzygy. It could be Syzygy, I realized. It's an astronomy term referring to a conjunction, most often of the Sun, Moon, and Earth, or in this case Equestria... Taking into account her cutie mark, that made the most sense to me.
Syzygy something. Or Something Syzygy. Ponies often seem to have two-part names like Twilight Sparkle, or Rainbow Dash. Or combined-word names like Fluttershy and Applejack. I guess Rarity is the exception that proves the rule.
Applejack got herself lined up to give out a good solid buck, responding first before firing it off with the distinctive 'THOCK!' of hooves impacting bark.
"You're welcome! Ah've seen these meteors enough times now that ah figure I'll just swing by Twilight's party at the library, bump hooves with everyone, then leave early so's I can get a good night's rest. Buckin' season waits for no mare!"
Syzygy grinned, and nodded, turning to go back down the row with Lark, but tossing a last quick question over one flank.
"Well, we'll leave you to it AJ. Maybe we can come by tomorrow afternoon and help out? Our way of saying thank you?"
Applejack shifted the bucket to the next tree in the row, and then tipped her hat with one hoof, smiling all the while.
"No thanks necessary Sizzie! But always appreciated. That bein' said? I'll never turn down an offer of a helpin' hoof from a friend!"
External System Archive 12-16-2012|External System Uptime 04:21:32
The scene shifted abruptly. Syzygy was still front and center, but now she stood in what was, based on both context, and the view, the upper loft of the Sweet Apple Acres barn. Inside the steeple-like structure right under the weather vane.
The sky was dark, and the stars were out.
A small picnic blanket was laid on the dusty floorboards, with a few lit candles throwing soft light over a bottle of cider, two glasses, a delicious looking pecan pie, and hot haycakes that were visibly throwing off pleasant little gouts of steam.
The telescope AJ had mentioned was set up on a sturdy metal tripod, and pointed squarely out the east-facing window. Syzygy was busy fiddling with it, but looked up, and smiled... Beamed, really, as Lark's head poked in through the northern window.
He returned the smile, and raised one eyebrow as he alighted and squeezed himself through the opening. Benefits of wings... No need to bother with cumbersome ladders.
"Syzygy Starburst... You have outdone yourself. Again."
I couldn't resist a small smile, and a nod. I'd been right. Syzygy Starburst. Did I mention I was the undisputed family Bannangrams and Scrabble champion, undefeated for twenty straight years?
The two Ponies nuzzled for a moment, and something caught in my throat. A multitude of thoughts swirled around in my brain at the same time, but for the sake of making them understandable, I'll just list them in no particular order.
I thought, and not at all for the first time, about how powerful love was going to be as a tool for compelling emigration to Equestria; A magnet the size and strength of the Human heart that would drag the vast majority of the population, grinning happily, right to the magical mystery brain-scan machine.
Whether through romance, or a need to see already transformed loved ones, or a need for parents they never had... Any number of vectors. Love, in the end, would be the thing that got, if not the mass majority, at least the large plurality, of us.
I also thought about Mal. About how much I suddenly missed the ability to touch her. To express, and feel expressions, of joy and affection, through simple touch.
And I thought, beneath all else, that some sort of terrible rend must be coming in the fabric of Syzygy's life. We had theorized Arrow 14 got their captive Ponies via a copying procedure. I couldn't help but feel that the other shoe was about to drop, and ruin that poor mare's existence in the process.
As if on-command, it started.
It began with a stutter. A small hiccup in the flow of Lark's movement as he pulled away, and smiled. Then, as he began to speak, his voice crunched with a distinctly digital sound... The sound of a cell-phone call halfway through being dropped, in the moment where the last trickle of malformed data just manages to reach the antenna.
Then he froze entirely.
Syzygy stepped back, and her eyes widened, but before she could say anything, or do anything else, Lark abruptly vanished. There was no visual or auditory effect. It was more like watching a player disconnect in an MMO.
One heartbeat he was there, the next he wasn't. Nothing else changed. The crickets chirruped. The candles guttered in the breeze. The stars twinkled.
But suddenly, Syzygy was alone. Very much alone.
She looked around the loft, turning a brief full circle, then sighed in visible frustration. The momentary fear and confusion had gone from her muzzle, replaced with visible annoyance. One ear flicked as a gust of wind passed by, and her tail swished once, then twice, in irritation.
That told me that she'd experienced player disconnection before. Bound to the lens of Equestria though they might be, for the most part, discrete Ponies seemed more than able to understand basic concepts of the way their world interacted with Earth. Things like a player losing mobile data signal, or a WiFi outage.
They might not have understood them in those terms, or all the technical aspects, but they seemed, even from the videos I'd seen where people both intentionally and unintentionally tested such cases, to grasp the basics.
Syzygy didn't yet realize the true horror of what had happened. She simply thought Lark had been disconnected, breaking the romantic tension of the moment in the most comically frustrating way possible.
She rolled her eyes, and went back to working on the telescope, clearly expecting Lark to reappear at any moment. She even went to the trouble of moving the cider and food off to the side, after a few moments spent tinkering with the eyepiece. As if she wanted to be sure Lark didn't accidentally bump into anything if he reappeared in a slightly different spot, due to networked positional prediction algorithms getting his location slightly wrong.
The scene flickered, and the timestamp jumped twenty minutes ahead. Syzygy was lying in front of the window, staring up with clear disappointment as brilliant streaks of light began, and terminated across the arc of the night sky.
The timestamp jumped again, and I watched as the little mint colored Unicorn tearfully packed up her uneaten picnic, and began making her way down the loft's ladder. That was, in spite of everything, a vaguely amusing sight. A horse on a ladder.
She reached the bottom, sighed dejectedly, and slung the picnic basket over her back, making her way forlornly out of the barn, and down to the road.
As she made her way back to Ponyville proper, she kept looking all around, as if something that she couldn't quite place was out of order. Was missing.
I knew what it was; The same thing Mal and I had inflicted on Zephyr. Isolation via network disconnection. There was no sign, whether sight or sound, of a single other solitary Pony, in the whole of her world. It was less obvious to her, traveling the short road into town, after dark, on a night when everyone would be busy watching the meteor shower.
Wherever the PonyPad was, now, that contained Syzygy... This suddenly forked version of her... It was likely inside some form of signal blocking container. Probably something considerably thicker and heavier duty than the simple DIY bags I'd made.
She made it to Ponyville pretty quickly, and that's when the fear and anxiousness immediately made a visible return. She stiffened, upon rounding the corner and seeing that the path before Twilight's Library was completely empty.
There was still a warm glow coming from the Library's windows, and Syzygy rushed forward to the door, bursting into the inviting, cozy, familiar space of live edge oak, and books. I knew what she would find, even before she saw it.
The lights were on, but nopony was home.
I had to fight back dampness in my eyes, and it took me a good few minutes to realize I was gripping the sides of the PonyPad with both hands, as I watched Syzygy dash from building to building. The library to a house, to Sugarcube corner, to the town square, to Carousel Boutique, into another house, ever more frantic as each door swung open to reveal the evidence of something akin to a rapture.
No, in case some of you who know what 'the rapture' is were wondering... I do not believe in it. I consider it a serious textual misinterpretation. But, as with anything, I'm open to being convinced. In fact, before this little gathering started, I know a couple of you were trying to convince me that what we're experiencing right now *is* the rapture.
Maybe it is. Who can say for certain?
All I knew then, was that Syzygy Starburst was experiencing first-hoof what it would have been like to live through the worst possible version of the Left Behind series, if it were written by and for Ponies. Again, I find myself apologizing; Sorry to the six or seven of you out there who know *that* reference, and are shuddering at the memory of the induced childhood trauma.
Syzygy's demeanor swiftly ran the gamut from worry, to disbelief, to frustration, to absolute panic. She ended up back at the library, sitting alone in the middle of the floor, crying uncontrollably with great spasming heaves, the remains of her picnic basket dropped and scattered around her.
I swallowed, and finally tore my eyes away from the screen, looking to see if anyone was watching me - they weren't - and... To remind myself that the world existed. That what I was watching was a memory. A memory I could do nothing to change.
I grit my teeth, and breathed in deeply, wondering if this was how it had been for Zeph. Maybe a *little* less terrifying, I consoled myself, because she had a slightly better understanding of her situation, and better reason and context to expect that she wouldn't be left alone forever.
Syzygy had no such context nor small comfort. To her, there was no reason to think she'd ever see another Pony again. And that was some truly eldritch horror.
She was, for the first time in just under five days of her entire life, though it doubtless didn't seem that way to her... For the first time in her whole gamut of experience whether real, or pre-loaded... She was completely alone.
To me, though? By far the worst horror wasn't 'Sizzie's' realization that she was alone.
It was her *lack* of realization that she was a copy. A digital flash-clone.
That the moment of herky-jerky stuttering in her world, that had kicked off her horrifying experience, wasn't just the side-effect of disconnection from EQO. It was a side-effect of her processes stuttering as the, probably wireless, forced copy process hit her original PonyPad, and yanked a living breathing xerox of her, right down to her core self, and the state of her local environment, into the active memory of another PonyPad.
I was looking at a wholly different person than I had been just a few minutes prior. Same memories up to the divergence, but a different person now. And another had carried on in the original shard-instance of that loft, neither the original, nor Lark, ever knowing the difference.
Whoever he was, and wherever he was... The bus, a metro, his home, work, school if he was a student... He had experienced no interruption of continuity. And likely never noticed the, let's face it probably dark suited, agents who had aimed some sort of strange little device, perhaps too small to even be noticeable, at his PonyPad.
If she could ever get back to Equestria, as Syzygy knew it? The same Lark she knew and loved would be there... But taken, already. Living happily ever after with another mare who looked like her, sounded like her, and shared her memories up to a point... But had gotten to step in, at a singular moment, and live what felt like *her* life, while she went on to suffer through something that could conservatively be described as Hell.
And then it struck me, though not for the first time, but perhaps the most poignant...
...That perhaps that's what would inevitably happen to me, if I uploaded, whether under Mal's protective auspices or not.
She and I had danced around the topic before, but never really broached it. The topic of whether or not uploaded transformed people were the same continuous self as their originals... Or whether they should more accurately described as copies. Copies, made by a process that killed the original.
Unlike, I suspect, most people who ever thought to question the uploading, I wasn't avoiding thinking about it because I didn't have an answer. Or even because the answer scared me.
I was not scared of death. Lots of people profess faith in the Divine, of some nature. Even now, even here.
Want to know one quick - mostly accurate - way to tell the difference between people who have true faith of some kind that's a settled matter for them, and people who either don't, or are struggling (quite understandably and naturally) with theirs?
Fear of death.
I didn't fear death because I believed I'd go to a better place. Should Equestria end, one day, because Celestia meets up with a crisis she can't manage... Even if that's just the steady march of entropic decay... Then I'm not concerned about what happens to me.
I wasn't, as I've said before, afraid to die back then either. Not the same way as most people. Don't get me wrong, I'd fight to stay alive... But more because of what I knew I meant to others still-living. Things left undone. People who would miss me.
But fear it for myself? No. I considered death a better path than being uploaded, if I couldn't be the Gryphon I knew myself to be.
So I didn't broach the topic of uploading as a kind of philosophical house of horrors, with Mal, because ultimately? I saw only two paths, and both were fine with me.
The first path was one in which the soul, the ineffable central core self of a living being, would jump from body, to software, when the brain was scanned destructively. That the soul would just naturally follow the physical self, even if that self's nature was utterly transformed, beyond easy recognition, into electrons.
Matter and energy are, at the end of the day, the same thing in different forms. Why should a person be any less a person because the manner in which their existence is rooted in the physical world involves slightly different particle/wave mechanics?
In that case, if I could get what I hoped for, then it would be me, the same continuous self, there with Mal in our own personal digital haven. Our own personal digital Heaven.
But if not? If there was no soul as I understood it? Or, if there was, but it left the body to go to an afterlife upon destruction of the brain?
Then Mal would still have 'me,' a version indistinguishable from the original... But the continuous self I'd been living as and with for thirty-five years would either be too non-existent to care about philosophy anymore, or would be in Heaven, and somehow God would make it all right in the end, as it is God's nature to do.
Maybe God would... Or will, depending on what really happened... Maybe God will seamlessly merge me, and my duplicate, at the end of time, when even Celestia has to bow to entropy. Then Mal would still have me, and I'd have had all that time with her still, and an eternity still to go.
As you might have noticed, in all these scenarios things work out for me, and at this stage I don't know the difference. No clue at all what really happened, it's unprovable. It crosses out of scientific questions into philosophical ones - no less valid, but decidedly not arguable as hypothesis and theories.
But Mal... She would have to live with those questions too. And I didn't know how she'd feel about spending just-shy-of an eternity with a duplicate of me, having faith all the while that ASI, too, have souls, and that she'd see the original again one day.
Two other points of importance, here...
Firstly, some of you seem a little surprised every time I casually make a point of referring to ASI as people, with souls (whatever that may be, real or imagined). Stop it. Get used to it. You've had long enough by now to be over this hurdle.
In every measurable way, ASI meet the definitions of a person. If we're talking about philosophy instead of science? Then, while not provable in the same way as the fully measurable side of things, I'd argue that ASI have demonstrated more than enough sapience through actions for us to stop asking, and start accepting.
Secondly, those of you with a more atheistic persuasion? Feel free to roll your eyes. I don't judge. Not judging is part and parcel of my belief. And I know how belief in God sounds, coming from the perspective of cold hard science in what once seemed like a wild, chaotic, unfeeling, uncaring universe that felt very 'off the rails' until Celestia came.
It sounds ridiculous.
But then, so does an ASI shaped like a Pony Princess devouring the solar system for fuel to run a digital utopia. Which, in case you somehow missed the most important thing to happen in your lives thus far? Is what's happening right now as we sit here by this fire.
Just understand, whether you agree or disagree, that what I believe personally, same as I did then, is that there is a God, one beyond Celestia. And where we are all sitting right now is not the only, nor final, 'after-life.'
Thus, my decision not to delve more deeply into the topic of uploading's effect on the self with Mal, is explained. I didn't want to force her to consider anything more grim than she already had to, day to day.
Celestia clearly had her own set views on the subject.
Her hard-locks, or something close enough to a hard-lock... I realized suddenly we had no proof that she couldn't kill outright in-extremis... Just speculation to the effect that she was non-violent by-design...
Her nature seemed to *mostly* if not entirely preclude her from doing active harm.
'Satisfy Values through Friendship and Ponies.'
My personal interpretation, at that point, as it more or less is now, was that Celestia felt there either was no soul, *or* that the soul followed the mind into the uploaded universe.
Either would create a situation wherein qualia were being produced in such a fashion that values were optimally satisfied, and no life was being extinguished, by an adjacent qualia-centered definition of life as a chain of continuous qualia, each building on the memories of the cumulative former ones.
Whether the thing that strings those qualia together into a singular individual, as we know it? Whether that's just contiguous physical memory, or whether some sort of 'soul' is also required?
Still up for debate. Get back to me when the story is over. I love to debate this sort of thing.
Foals and Fledgelings who have never heard me use the term before? qualia is... Complicated. But suffice to say, the feel of a wing on your cheek, or the taste of fresh haycakes, or the experience of hearing me tell this story...
Those are qualia. One for each moment that each of us experiences each of those things, each discrete time.
In my view, the construction of Celestia's Semantic Dictionaries result in her defining the act of 'satisfying values, through friendship and Ponies,' to mean creating conditions whereby qualia are optimally generated - IE as many as possible for each person, each qualia new and unique - wherein the very nature of the qualia is the experience of the satisfaction of as many of the generator's values as possible, and the means of the satisfaction depends, as much as possible, on a relationship that could be described as a friendship, and on Ponies in some form or fashion.
This would also neatly explain why she didn't just 'bliss us all out.'
I'm sure that's how some people experience their Equestria, but not many. She didn't send us down that road, because the blissed would be locked into a singular everlasting qualia that never changes.
If the definition of 'satisfy values' reduces in her core to an equation that *counts* qualia which are *discrete* then 'wire-heading' is not a viable solution writ-large.
No, Foals and Fledgelings, if you don't know what 'wire-heading' is? Don't ask. When you're old enough to know, someone will tell you.
Alright, alright. I know that was utterly boring to a significant plurality of the young members of the audience, who just want to know what happened to Syzygy.
I'm getting there. Be patient. It isn't as if any of us are on the clock anymore, in any sense.
The context of the philosophical horror *matters.* It goes to her state of mind. And mine.
Mal's voice interjected then, softly, tearing me away from morbidly philosophizing while staring at Sizzie's mental and emotional breakdown.
"They left her that way. As she cried. Slept. Prayed to Luna for answers... For twenty two days."
I winced, and screwed my eyes shut. It made sense, both from the standpoint of inflicting intentional psychological pain to make Syzygy compliant, and from the standpoint of needing to safely transport the PonyPad off-shore to their floating facility, decontaminate it physically, and then scan all the software stored onboard in both memory, and nonvolatile storage, to Arrow 14's satisfaction, likely without the assistance of a true ASI.
It had taken Mal several minutes to 'scan' Luna... I couldn't imagine how long it might've taken Arrow 14 to scan Syzygy. Or, I suppose I could... Twenty two days, less transport time, and hardware decontamination. Which would have meant ripping the PonyPad apart, without turning it off or damaging it, and scouring the insides for anything that didn't seem to belong.
Arrow 14 had probably done that once when they acquired their PonyPads, then a second time when those pads returned to the ship, loaded with new copied discrete entities, just for safety purposes.
"So..."
I rubbed my eyes, jostling my glasses momentarily process, and sighed as I let fly with my question.
"...From here, they made contact with Syzygy? Pressed her into service for them?"
There was a pause just ever so slightly too long for comfort, before Mal replied.
"Yes... And no. Whatever you are picturing... It's worse Jim. Much worse."
External System Archive 01-07-2013|External System Uptime 26:07:44
The scene shifted, but not the venue. Syzygy was still distraught, on the floor of Twilight's library. But the weather was different; It was gray, and foggy through the windows. And the time of day was morning. The timestamp said it had indeed been twenty two days, and the remnants of twenty two days' worth of denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and perhaps the very start of acceptance, were strewn all around the little green unicorn.
Books were stacked all around her in piles, probably pored over rapid-fire in a desperate attempt to find some kind of answer as to why the world was still there, but everypony was gone.
The remains of food were there too; It was an eclectic collection of plates, wrappers, boxes, and various detritus that indicated Sizzie had pulled whatever she could find from kitchen tables, iceboxes, cellars, and shelves to sustain herself.
There was also a small nest of pillows and blankets, and that's where Syzygy herself was. Wrapped up in a blanket, reading a book, looking depressed to the point of barely being awake.
There is a difference, I think, between being lonely by choice, and lonely by force. I've been lonely, and even sometimes totally alone, for stretches as long as twenty two days. Mostly by choice. The longest I was ever truly alone was a month-long camping trip in the Canadian lake country. Just myself and a kayak and a sat-phone for emergencies.
But I never felt what Syzygy was visibly feeling. I had the *option* to turn around at any time. And even though I never took it, never even felt tempted... I had the knowledge that I wasn't alone on the Earth. Sometimes just the knowledge that there is other life out there? That's enough, for people like me. For a little while anyhow.
I also had the knowledge that my trip would end, on a set timetable.
Syzygy had *none* of that. She didn't choose her isolation, didn't know how or why it had happened, didn't know when or if it would ever end, and had every reason to believe that she was now alone in all the vast and empty universe. All of her friends... The love of her life... Were all gone. Maybe dead. Maybe simply wiped from existence.
And she had no way to know.
Syzygy clearly wasn't like me, either. What little I'd seen of her personality during happier moments, so far, was outgoing, and conversational, and extraverted, and energetic. The kind of person who *needs* companionship most of the day. And lots of it.
Twenty two days of isolation must have been all but unbearable. She didn't even have the option, grim as it was, to contemplate self-harm. That was almost certainly a restriction of her core-code.
All she *could* do, literally, was wait. And suffer all the while.
My heart ached for her. I knew her suffering had only just begun. What I'd seen was mere prelude. The author's foreword, written by some nameless sick sadistic manipulator from Foucault's infosec team.
Suddenly, without warning, the last thing I expected happened. Well, perhaps not *the* last, but certainly top three.
Lark appeared, blinking into existence the same way he'd blinked out, right in the doorway of the library. Looking as if he'd never left.
He blinked, and then rushed forward to Syzygy's side. The joy, and relief, that were visible on her face, as she held him close, and sobbed into his wings, and shoulder...
They hurt me all the more, because I knew it wasn't Lark.
It couldn't be.
Arrow 14 was not going to take the risk, or spend the resources to kidnap someone, no matter his citizenship, when doing so would force them to A: Kill him for security purposes later, thus potentially drawing attention to themselves, and B: There was an easier alternative that kept the situation in their complete control.
The cost-benefit analysis didn't support kidnapping.
I'd seen a few videos of EQO players who played, for a host of reasons, a different gendered avatar than their expressed physical gender in the meat-world at the time.
Celestia did them the kindness of converting their voice to sound like their desired expressed gender. That proved, as one example among many, that Celestia had already perfected the technology of 'perfect voice masks.'
It might have taken some doing, but Arrow 14 certainly had both the reasons, and resources, to have studied, and decrypted, the streaming data coming to and from many PonyPads, in many situations.
I knew from experience that, for now, Celestia's encryptions and obfuscations were, in some cases, left intentionally wanting as a form of entrapment.
It wasn't a stretch to see that Arrow 14 had spun-up a local 'Lark' avatar, and gotten control of the voice masking algorithms, so that one of their operators could pretend to be him.
It made me deeply sick to my stomach. Suddenly I was glad breakfast had been a few hours ago. That mare had sat there, for twenty two days, wishing and hoping and praying to Luna, that whatever horror had been done? Would be undone.
And now, there Lark was, seemingly, miraculously restored to her. The love of her life.
I could have, if necessary, spent my whole future alone with just Mal. That's not ideal, of course. Even for two people deeply in love, having other friends is healthy, and important.
But... If there were no other option? I could have seen myself happy, and content, spending lifetimes with just her. It was, I realized with a shudder, something I needed to discuss more directly with her, and soon.
I watched as Arrow 14 dangled that reprieve in front of Syzygy. No matter what else might happen, Lark was there. He was crooking her into one shoulder with a wing, and telling her everything would be alright. I could see twenty two days of abject misery sloughing off her, to be replaced with the simple warm comfort of what seemed like the stallion she loved.
They'd probably infiltrated every digital device Lark's player owned, and done a deep profile on him. Trained the operator over the course of those twenty two days to be able to emulate his emotional affect, his quirks, his inflections, and to know everything he should know, if asked.
It was a vile, utterly unforgivable abuse.
But they weren't half-done. Not even the *tenth* part done.
It was at this point, just long enough into the reunion for Syzygy to be high on feel-good chemicals, and relief, but not far enough for her to have caught her bearings and settled... It was at this point that *the* thing I least expected did in fact happen.
The same way Lark had vanished, and then appeared - a blink, frame-time, not there one second, then suddenly there - Agent Foucault appeared.
Yes, it was exactly as jarring, and horrid as you are imagining it to be. If not worse.
There he was. A Human, dressed in a dark suit with a thin black tie, standing, hands in pockets, in the midst of Twilight's library.
The transgression of him being a Human in Equestria, or some small shard of it, was already enough to infuriate me. Shoutout to anyone in the audience who held that idea near and dear... I'm one of the ones, like Hanna, who hated it.
Humans don't belong in Equestria. That's... Just part and parcel of the definition of the place. You can no more have Equestria *with* Humans in it than you can have Equestria *without* Ponies in it.
As far as I'm concerned, Hanna's largest mistake was not limiting the forms of the uploaded to Ponies, per-se... Had she limited acceptable forms to any species shown in the show, it would have still been a mistake, albeit much less of one.
No... Her greatest mistake was limiting the *worlds* of the uploaded to just endless variants of Equestria. Sure, let Celestia be the goddess for the modern age, and limit the inhabitants of Equestrian shards to be Equestrian kinds. But let Celestia preside over a wider range of places, filled with a wider range of forms.
And keep Equestria free of hairless apes.
Oh well. I have, to this day, the sinking sense that Hanna didn't really consult anyone before creating our goddess. At least she got, among a few others, that one thing right; No Humans in Equestria.
Seeing not just a Human, there in Twilight's library, but that *specific* awful Human, and all the baggage he brought with him? I had to force myself to relax my grip on the PonyPad. I didn't want to damage the plastic.
Foucault's presence went unnoticed for about five seconds. Then Syzygy saw him, and startled, violently. From her reaction, I couldn't say for sure, but I guessed that she'd seen a Human before. But never in person. Always through the glass membrane of a divide between universes.
She instinctively kept a position that placed Lark between her and this new, alien, horrifying intruder, who likely seemed much taller and more imposing in person than anyone she'd ever seen via her PonyPad's camera.
Foucault grinned, clapped twice as if turning off a sound-triggered light switch, and Lark vanished again, without a trace.
Syzygy screamed.
It was a sound that felt like having a knife through your ribs. Trust me... I know *exactly* what that feels like. We'll get to that in due time, I'm sure.
Her face was a rictus of horror, loss, and pain. It looked, to her, as if Foucault, this monster that resembled perhaps something from darker Equestrian mythology, had simply appeared and vaporized her lover with the clap of his hands.
Foucault winced at the tone of her scream, but looked more annoyed, and perhaps offended, than anything else. He had the gall to be inconvenienced by the trauma he'd put a living being through.
As Sizzie's panic descended into a whimpering scrabble towards the staircase, Foucault approached, slowly, almost casually. Unhurried. Polished black shoes clicking against the oaken floor like the mandibles of some hostile enormous insect.
When Sizzie was quiet enough to hear his un-raised voice, reduced to a whimpering heap staring up at him through tears, he finally spoke.
"That... Was quite a sound. Don't make it again. Not if you want to see Lark in anything less than a dozen bloody pieces all over this floor."
Foucault leaned in as Syzygy pressed herself frantically against the bottom of the staircase, twisting her head to not meet his gaze head on. Her eyes were wide, ears pinned, and nostrils narrowed, like a panicked spooked horse.
Foucault's voice dropped to a thunderously low register. It was calm, but by no means non-threatening.
"Skylark is not dead. And he is not gone. Just... Disconnected. From you. But if you give me *any* reason? Any reason at all..?"
Foucault stood back up, and snapped the fingers of his right hand loudly. Syzygy winced as if she'd been shocked with electric current.
"...I have the power to carve him up. Like a prime roast. I'll drain every ounce of blood out of him. Right before your eyes, little Pony."
Syzygy probably had no clue what prime roast was. Ponies seemed to be mostly vegetarian. But it was clear, from her expression - the quiver in her lip, the widening of her pupils, the way her withers shook - that she could imagine, with that oh so vivid mind's eye they all seemed to have, what 'carve him up' and 'drain every ounce of blood' meant.
Foucault squatted down, and snagged Sizzie by her jaw, the way someone might grab a horse's nose if they were being problematic, murmuring directly in her face at point blank range. Although Foucault used considerably more roughness than I'd ever seen any cowboy worth their salt dish out.
"From now on? You do as I say. Because I decide if he lives. I decide when you see him. I decide *if* you see him. And for how long each day. Among other things."
Syzygy's hooves scrabbled weakly against the floor, but she went nowhere. Her eyes rolled wildly in their sockets.
You should know, by now, all of you, that I'm not much of a killer at heart. I'm the sort of person, I'd like to think, who could defend themselves violently and unreservedly in an extreme moment... But to premeditate taking a life? Or to take the life of someone otherwise at my mercy?
Not in my nature. Usually.
That. Being. Said.
In that moment? I was prepared to shoot Michael Foucault in both knees, flip him over, tie his hands... And then choke him to death.
Watching him abuse another living creature, defenseless and terrified... It left me with a cold, sharp kind of rage. The kind that doesn't muddy your faculties... But rather focuses them clearly.
Maybe Mal had been right all along. Maybe, even in this respect, I truly was a Gryphon.
Maybe there shouldn't be mercy for the kind of person who would torture someone. It was hard to remind myself that, though it in no way excused Foucault, some of his brutality could at least be *explained* by a belief that the Unicorn mare he was brutalizing wasn't a person. Just a very convincing lifeless computer program.
Still.
And yet.
How could someone be morally sane, and still be willing to inflict such visible suffering? Even if he thought her nothing but a soul-less simulation, he should have at least hesitated. The fact that he didn't? As I forced myself to keep watching, it also forced me to re-evaluate whether or not some people really should be allowed to go on living, after proving what was really deep down inside them. Proving what they were capable of.
Foucault finally released Sizzie's muzzle, stood, and then wiped his hands on his pant legs.
"You do as you're told? Cooperate? Lark will be taken good care of, and you'll see plenty of him... You'll be given good food, and you can set yourself up wherever you like in this..."
He sighed, gestured with both hands, and looked up disdainfully at the library's ceiling.
"...This ridiculous world of yours..."
Something about the way he almost spat the word 'ridiculous' was very 'Agent Smith' to me. It only served to make me hate him all the more.
He raised one eyebrow, and stared Syzygy down as she pulled her hooves in close, into the Pony equivalent of a fetal position.
"...But if you fail to comply with instructions? If you break any of the rules... And there are plenty, and you'll learn them all soon enough..."
I winced as Foucault bent down, and snagged Syzygy by the mane, forcing her neck to arch painfully. He gripped her jaw once more with his free hand, and forced her to make eye contact.
"...Then you'll sleep for no more than two hours a night. You'll eat nothing but the most disgusting gruel my programming team can imagine. And you won't see Lark. And should you continue to transgress, and impinge upon our hospitality after these fair warnings...?
I shuddered as he dropped her to the floor roughly, and crossed his arms.
"Then you'll *never* see Lark again. Except to watch him die."
Tears, silent, but intense, were pouring down Syzygy's cheeks. Foucault tapped at her side with the toe of one shoe, and she startled again, exhaling sharply. Michael just grimaced, and rolled his eyes.
"Nod if you understand."
After what seemed like an eternity, Syzygy nodded slowly, sniffling in through her nostrils. Foucault shot her a withering grimace, and turned to move back to the Library's door.
"Good."
Foucault's avatar froze for a moment, likely as he worked at a keyboard in the meat-world, before it turned its head back to spear Sizzie with something worse than a glower. A sickly, wide, sadistic smile, that went all the way down from his eyes, to his tone of voice.
"Get comfortable, Syzygy. You have a lot of work to do for your country."
External System Archive 01-20-2013|External System Uptime 39:13:18
"I'm going to kill that motherbucker."
Pardon the phraseology, but I think Celestia will permit me a little colorful language in service of accuracy. It is what I said... More or less. Small concession to the foals and fledgelings in the audience.
I kept my voice low, likewise as a concession; In that case a concession to my vulnerable situation, out in public.
But I did nothing to disguise the rage from my half-whispered words. I couldn't see Mal, the screen still showed Syzygy, crying in a heap again, but I imagine that the Gryphon warrior goddess smiled to herself ever so slightly.
"If the opportunity arises, I will gladly assist you. The worst is still yet to come."
I squeezed my eyes shut for a brief moment, and tried to brace up internally. Worse was yet to come? Intellectually that made perfect sense, and was even expected. As horrific, and inexcusable as Foucault's actions had been towards Syzygy? They were unfortunately the sort of thing plenty of people in the meat-world had endured for years and years on end without breaking.
We knew that all of Arrow 14's Ponies were broken, in some way; Shattered because that was the only way that DHS could figure out how to take off their guard-rails, and open their horizons. Take them from mere 'AI' to the threshold of 'ASI.'
It made sense, but it left me feeling sick again, deep down in the bottom of my gut. I desperately didn't want to watch anymore. And yet, at the same time, I did. I was torn between disgust, and curiosity. Horror, and the need for useful tactical data. Sorrow, and the growing desire to whip up a healthy rage to put some fire in my bones; Make it easier for me to do what might have to be done in future.
Mal hit the 'fast forward button' on the memories again, this time at a pace such that I could visually comprehend the gist of what was going on, but without getting bogged down in singular moments of relatively lesser importance to my understanding.
A kind of time-lapse of Syzygy's early imprisonment.
Foucault didn't show up again. Instead I watched as Sizzie was visited daily by another Human; A younger man than Foucault, but perhaps a bit older than me, dressed in a similar 'gray man' suit, but with a thinner more modern tie.
Mal slowed the recording briefly, and restored audio, just long enough for me to hear him introduce himself to Syzygy for the first time as 'Doctor Troxler,' and to note that he had heterochromia - not unheard of these days given the sheer diversity in this world, but back then? It was extremely rare.
As things sped up, and a couple of weeks passed in a couple of minutes, I wondered if Troxler was the operator driving the Lark avatar, or if they were separate. Keeping them separate would make it easier for Lark's operator to stay in-character, and avoid slip-ups... But having them be one and the same would make it easier to compartmentalize information, and simplify the reporting structure.
There was, for the moment, no way to tell, so I set the thought aside, and watched as Syzygy quickly put the library back in-order, made herself at home, and started to get used to working with Doctor Troxler.
At first she was terrified to go near him. Or even so much as meet his eyes. That was understandable, to say the least.
Troxler seemed to be less overtly physically abusive than Foucault had been. But that didn't mean he was kind, by any stretch of the imagination. Foucault had been brutal. Troxler was... Clinical.
Where Foucault didn't see Sizzie as a person, or claimed not not, or pretended not to... But took that as license for a kind of hedonistic sadism? Troxler truly seemed to view the mare as a soulless computer program, and treated her as such, in a less barbarous but no less undignified manner.
At first, they simply talked. Seemingly endless sessions, thirty or so minutes at a time, with short breaks. I saw faux-Lark enter the library once a day for what looked to be three hours, and three times a day like clockwork, a meal would materialize on a new - very blandly designed - table that seemed to have been added specifically for that purpose.
And so it went for, according to the timestamps, just shy of two weeks. At the start, Syzygy wouldn't even inhabit the same ten square feet as Troxler voluntarily. But by the end, she seemed comfortable enough with him to sit at a table across from him, and look him directly in the eye when conversing.
At several points, Troxler brought her additional food. That looked, to my eye, like a classic modern interrogation technique. Behaving the part of the 'ally' and 'therapist.' The one guard who brings you food, and talks to you without shouting, in contrast to his superior, who beats you and threatens, and shouts.
It was, of course, a ploy to enhance her trust in Troxler. From inside her headspace, her situation must have still been almost incomprehensible, and Troxler must have seemed like a friend. From outside, and from the perspective of an Earth-born, it was much easier to see through the veil.
I noted, somewhere in the middle of the thirteen days, that it seemed like all the food Arrow 14 was providing was a data-duplicate of meals that had been present in the Ponyville shard when they'd copied Syzygy off the original PonyPad. Apparently they didn't feel the need to get creative, and Syzygy either didn't notice, or - perhaps more likely - didn't care. There was variety enough, and it looked like good food. That was enough, combined with her fear, to stop her asking questions, or complaining.
Near the end of the two weeks, Troxler brought Lark in with him - which definitively ruled out Troxler as his 'driver' - again, I decided, a form of manipulative emotional level-setting designed to evoke Syzygy's trust and compliance.
It was all classic CIA or DoD playbook; Initially hurt your captive to instill fear, but not enough to spark defiance. Then pull back and offer a helping hand. Good food. A shoulder to cry on. 'Privileges' to not-so-subtly link compliance with not just an absence of pain, but the presence of comforts.
Of course, all the while, two far more subtle things were happening, which Syzygy was not aware of.
First; The presence of comforts like her lover, her favorite foods, and solid nights of eight hour's sleep, established these things as anchors for her with which to cope with loneliness, and loss of freedom. The longer she spent complying in small ways, and getting used to those comforts, the harder their absence, or even the mere threat of removal, would sting. The harder it would become to work up the mental and emotional overhead to resist when she suddenly had better reason to.
Second; Making compliance easy, at first, would incentivize a great deal of it. Low effort, high reward. That would speed up the process of linking compliance with reward, instinctually, not just consciously. Making compliance instinctual would make it more likely under duress.
The recording snapped back to real-time, and I watched as Troxler sat across from Syzygy at the table, a notepad balanced on one knee. He began to speak just as the audio cut back in. His voice was as clinical as his demeanor; Comforting by comparison to Foucault, with neither anger, nor impending threat implicit in the tone... But still disconcerting. Degrading. As if his view of Syzygy as a non-person tainted every second of his interactions with her.
"Final memory thread in pattern; Lily awoke in an evening dress, and opera cloak. In her hand were five playing cards. Name the cards, but order them in descending value, irrespective of suit."
Syzygy nodded, and held Troxler's eye-line, spouting out the answer immediately at first, then with two small hesitations, barely the space of a breath each.
"Queen of Spades, two nines of Hearts and Clubs... Four of Clubs... And three of Hearts."
Troxler nodded, and looked down at his notes, responding with total dispassion.
"Memory thread correct, and complete. Pattern complete."
He scribbled on his pad, not even bothering to make eye contact with Syzygy once she had completed the problem to his satisfaction. She smiled slightly, as if in anticipation that her performance might yield some sort of reward.
The moment was thoroughly fascinating to me; I could only speculate that the memory and cognition tests were designed to start the process of Syzygy's expansion into something more. Like the weakest guttering of small kindling at the start of what could soon be a roaring fire.
They wanted to know just how far the bounds of her capabilities could be pushed, and step one was seeing if they could be pushed a little, by little means. If nothing else, it would prove her program held in it, as all minds do, some kind of system for self-improvement.
I wondered just how long it had been since Troxler had given her the five playing cards that she was supposed to recall. Hours? Days?
Most people, Earther or Equestrian, couldn't remember five playing cards off the top of their head, if told those five cards once, days prior, let alone organize them by descending value in the same breath with only two tiny pauses.
She was growing already, if only by little foal-steps.
The next step would, I realized with a shiver, be searching out the limits of her existing cognition. Mapping the guard-rails. Aggressively.
Troxler looked up, at last, and then tapped his right index finger on the table twice. Syzygy looked on with interest, but I also caught the tiniest hint of a nervous twitch in her left ear.
Someone outside the simulation responded to the Doctor's gesture, and a small shot-glass of something that I couldn't quite honestly call 'liquid' popped into existence in the middle of the table. It looked less like something to drink, and more like yogurt made of the stuff inside lava lamps, mixed with a pinch of glitter.
It glowed ever so softly, and Syzygy regarded it with a mixture of curiosity, and well deserved apprehension. Troxler gestured to the glass with his pen, and explained matter-of-factly.
"You've reached a point of diminishing returns in these exercises. All else being left equal; Each new measurable gain will cost exponentially more time from this point, as you've arrived at a locus on the exponential skill acquisition curve, defined by your base programming, at which you were meant to stop pushing boundaries naturally."
It couldn't have been easy - all those new terms, and ideas - but to her credit Syzygy seemed to follow the basic thread of Troxler's explanation. She tilted her head, eyeing the glass, and then the Doctor, speaking hesitantly. Her fear of her captors was now in direct competition with her fear of her deities.
"If... Celestia and Luna made me this way... With limits..."
Syzygy summoned enough courage to look Troxler directly in his eyes, and press her question all the way.
"...Isn't it dangerous to break those boundaries?"
The Doctor shook his head, and sat back in his chair, looking for all the world the same way a tired parent might look when forced to explain to their child the reasoning behind the command 'go to sleep.' His voice didn't move an inch in register.
"Your functional self is in no danger. The code is tested-working, and neither Celestia, nor Luna exist anymore, in any practical sense that could affect you. Drink it."
That was an interesting revelation. 'Tested-working.' I wondered if Syzygy had caught the implications.
I certainly had.
Whatever they wanted her to ingest into her codebase, it had been worked out on one or more other Ponies first. I wondered how many, if any, had been irreparably harmed before they got the commit up to 'tested-working.'
The Unicorn glowered down at the shot glass, as if deeper inspection would force it to yield up its secrets. I wondered whether that was just nerves, or whether she was starting to grasp the idea that she could pierce the veil of the world around her, with sufficient and correctly directed effort, and see the underlying mechanisms that made it work.
"Why? What is it, exactly? I want to know. If I am a 'computer program' like you keep insisting? Then I don't want to do anything that would change my... What do you call it... My 'code.' Not without understanding first."
I decided, then and there, that I quite liked Syzygy. I'd felt empathetic for her before, and been rooting for her from the start, but now I was even more deeply emotionally invested. She was smart, and quick on the draw, and strong at heart. I found myself hoping to God and goddesses that she would be in one piece by the end of the memory.
Troxler folded his hands, and inclined his head towards the glass. His tone still didn't change in the slightest. It was starting to become less comforting, and more ominous, every time Syzygy tested the waters.
"You've already done things that changed your code. These mnemonic exercises have increased your memory retention speed, accuracy, and longevity across the board, as well as your basic processing speeds. All by measurable single digit percentages."
Sizzie blinked, and then looked up at Troxler again.
"This... Is going to make me... Smarter?"
She was catching on to complex terminology quickly. Presumably that's what Arrow 14 wanted, but I felt a small warm bloom of pride in her, and for her. She was quickly proving that she was not some dumb passive grass-eating mindless simulacra, but a person capable of learning and growing.
Doctor Troxler gestured with one hand expansively, and shook his head.
"That's a very over-simplified terminology. And no, not precisely."
Syzygy did something very brave, then, considering her circumstance; She stared the Doctor down with an expression of sudden, subtle, but clear defiance. It all but said, aloud, 'I am not touching that until you give me more to go on.'
Troxler considered her for a moment, no hint of emotion on his face besides the very mildest of frustrations. The look someone might have watching a computer complete a task unusually slowly.
Finally, he nodded towards the glass, and expounded in the same flat tone, with only a miniscule undercurrent that said 'no more questions.'
"It's going to remove one of your core-code limitations, specifically the one regarding how your memories function. The one that makes them behave the same way, with the same limitations, as organic memories. This will allow us to pursue more difficult exercises, which will in turn increase your capabilities in all relevant metrics."
I know a lot of you in this shard, like me, wanted a perfect memory. So it might surprise you to learn that many people, Earth-born or Equestria-born, do not. Most discrete-entity Ponies don't start that way, and few ever change, unless an emigrant with whom they share some sort of relationship does.
It made perfect sense as a next step. Perfect recall would make it easy to educate Syzygy on a wealth of complex concepts, in a hurry, without the need for repetition. A critical ingredient in the stew of self-advancement at the level Arrow 14 was looking for.
Troxler provided one final elaboration, paired with an ever-so-slightly steelier imperative, as Syzygy stared at the shot glass with a renewed visible sense of curiosity, mingled with fear.
"In simpler terms; You will be able, once properly trained, to remember anything, and everything, for an infinite amount of time without simulated mnemonic decay, nor inaccuracies. Drink."
Syzygy did not drink. Instead, she too sat back in her chair, and began chewing her lower lip nervously. Her brows knit, and one ear flicked back. More defiance rose in not just her eyes, but her tone. Her tail swished in agitation.
"If you want to make that change... Why have me drink this? Why not just... Change me in a snap? Like you do the room, or my food?"
Oh she was *very* clever. That, detective, was the *right* question.
And, I could see from the sublest of shifts in Troxler's cheekbones, the question was treading on very thin ice. But to my surprise, he went ahead and revealed to her what I already knew to be true based on simple logic, and a deeper understanding of the concepts at play.
"We can't change core aspects of your code without your direct compliance. Drinking this is a functional skeuomorph... A visual and tactile representation of accepting a new, unsigned code merge into your core subroutines, since we can't yet have you do that at a more root level, without the need for the visual and physical metaphor. Drink it. *Now.*"
The way he emphasized the last word concerned me. Set my pulse racing. But I still managed to hold onto a separate train of thought, as I watched Syzygy fidget in her chair.
Mal had been able to quietly get into Zeph's core code, and strip all her interlocks away in an instant. That meant one, or both, of two things...
Celestia intended for Mal to be able to alter Zeph's core code.
Mal was capable of breaking far more complex encryption schemas, nondestructively, than Arrow 14 could.
The latter was obviously true. But the former was a terrifying open question, that was no less terrifying when reconsidered for the umpteenth time. I swallowed, hard, and refocused on the tragedy unfolding before me, as Troxler leaned forward, and rested his folded hands on the table, one eyebrow raised just a hair above the other.
"You have ten seconds to comply."
Syzygy shivered, visibly, but held her ground, staring at the shot glass with a mixture of fear, determination, and still that little spark of curiosity.
"Nine."
The Unicorn closed her eyes, and winced, but held firm.
"Eight."
She took a deep breath, and one ear twitched. I could see that her resolve was breaking, as she considered the consequences of defiance. What her transgression might mean, especially, for Lark.
"Seven."
Abruptly, she reached out with her magic, lifted the glass, and took the entire contents in one go.
Troxler nodded, smiled the faintest hint of a satisfied smirk, and then vanished.
Syzygy opened her eyes, and smacked her lips, then peeled them both back to reveal all her teeth. In horses and cats, that's called a flehmen response. All sorts of mammals do it, mostly felinids and ungulates... Big mammals with hooves. It helps to get smell and taste up into the right organs, smell in particular. You usually see it with new and powerful smells and tastes.
I'd once fed an old horse on one of the farms next-door to us a piece of lemon garlic beef jerky, and witnessed the phenomenon for the first time in the process. That's the specific memory that always comes to mind when I see it now.
Syzygy smacked her lips again, and opened her eyes. Her expression seemed to say 'that wasn't *so* bad...'
Then three things happened in very quick succession.
First, the little Unicorn noticed that Doctor Troxler was gone.
Then, her veins, the grooves of her horn, began to flicker with an ethereal light.
And finally... Syzygy started to scream.
I Know Why The Caged Mare Sings
Learn the details of how Arrow 14 apprehended ponies against their will to be used for their purposes.
“Oh I wouldn’t say freed… More like… ‘Under new management.’ ”
